KEIA, LUKE & FRANKIE

"Before I got pregnant I was really interested in hypnobirthing. It’s just something that absolutely fascinated me, I watched endless YouTube videos on positive hypnobirths and just became fascinated by how this practice made giving birth more positive for women and their birthing partners. It was always something I wanted to do and I was lucky enough that my partner, Luke, is very open minded so didn’t need any convincing.

Luckily, a friend recommended me to Jennie who provided us with a great ‘taster session’ to show us (and many other couples) how she practiced and what we could expect from the course. What I really loved about the way Jennie started to the session was by ‘myth busting’. I feel like I myth bust whenever I mention Hypnobirthing to anyone. I don’t think the name helps itself to be honest, but you do spend a lot of time sort of defending yourself as to why/what you’re doing, if it comes up in conversation.

I didn’t fixate on my due date and I genuinely feel this is what allowed my body to start the process at 38 weeks. I had in my mind that as long as he was after 37 weeks (full term) we would be fine. I trusted that my body and baby would come when it was ready and it did despite having a very rocky pregnancy.

Unfortunately the Corona Pandemic got more and more serious closer to me being ready to give birth. This is where Hypnobirthing came into play and I wasn’t even giving birth yet. One of the things Jennie taught me was that affirmations work. Cheesy but ‘what you read, you believe’. Anyone who’s been to my house will have seen these affirmations dotted about, I would read them everyday. One of them is ‘I let go of what I can’t control’. So I did. I let go. After a big cry, a panic attack, several pep talks from Luke - I let go, because I had to. What was my other choice? Carry on crying and panicking? What was that achieving? Nothing. I wasn’t going to get the home birth I had planned for but that was okay.

In a nutshell, I was able to use my breathing to get me to 7cm, just breath alone. The midwives couldn’t believe it. A few factors made it hard/not possible to carry on just using breath and so baby got tired and so did I. The last part of my labour was never in my plan - a partly failed epidural, a spinal, an episiotomy and forceps. However, because I was informed and could ask all the right questions I didn’t feel like anything was ‘done against my will’. I understood why certain things needed to happen because I asked the right questions and was able to accept them because of the Hypnobirthing course. I didn’t feel robbed of a positive birth and I felt like Luke and I worked with the doctors, midwives and anaesthetists to get the best and safest outcome. That’s all I could ever ask for. Hypnobirthing is more than a relaxation course, it truly informs you to feel empowered no matter what.

So despite feeling very sore, losing a lot of blood and not having an idyllic home birth I had wished for - I still feel like superwoman."